Wednesday, 28 November 2012

Here's a really quick and simple How To.
If you are as much of a fan of the teacake as me, do go and see Gillian Kyle's teacake [and caramel wafer] creations! My Christmas wishlist is filling up with items from this range:

What You Need:

White Chocolate

Red / Green Writing Icing

Melt your white chocolate and using a small teaspoon, start at the top of the teacake and allow the chocolate to cover the top. To get the icing effect, take the side of the spoon and drag the chocolate down the sides, continuing in sections around the teacake:

Allow the chocolate to set [pop in the fridge if you are short of time] before decorating:

With a green icing pen, draw holly leaves on the top [have a practice on parchment paper or on a chopping board if you are a little unsure of the pen or nervous!]:

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

Its cold, no? I love getting home after work to a warm house and something that adds even more warmth and welcome for me is the smell of Christmas, so I've tried to recreate it with some fruit and spice for a wreath that will keep the house smelling of the season - this is part 1: Drying the fruit.

Hello, how are you? We are here, in the week before December. You can't avoid it [though like me, I hope you don't want to] - Christmas is starting and slowly making its way to taking over all the shops. This weekend, my decorations come down from the loft and I am going to the Dorchester for Christmas Afternoon Tea with friends [and a Christmas choir - so excited!] Over the weekend and this week, I have been preparing for something I hope to make soon - a Christmas dried fruit wreaths and hanging. I dried some sliced oranges last year [that truth be told, were sliced too thinly] and used them to decorate, but not just for the look - they smell of Christmas and last for the whole season, so this year I am adding some more fruits to the mix and adding a bit of spice.

Oranges, satsumas, lemons, limes, grapefruits and apples:

The key thing you need is a sharp knife. Last year, this is where it all fell apart for me and I had hacked slices, rather than nice, clean ones - so I've learnt my lesson and I've also cut everything to a thickness of around 1/2cm to try and prevent any tearing / breaking later down the line.

I cut slices from a bag of oranges [4 in total] and a large bag of apples [6], 1 lemon and 1 lime and lastly, 1 white grapefruit and 1 pink grapefruit:

To add a little variation, I also used satsumas [4 in total], which I have cut in to at quarters, but not completely all the way through, so that the fruit still holds in shape. Start your cut around 1 cm from the top, cut through the fruit and finish your cut around 1 cm from the bottom.
I then did the same to 1 lime and 1 lemon:

Once cut, blot each slice with kitchen paper to help dry them out and lay flat on a tray lined with baking paper to help stop the fruit sticking when drying.

To some of the orange slices, I added a light sprinkle of ground cinnamon:

Next, I decided to pop my slices and start the drying process off a little quicker into the oven at a low heat. The length of time you need in the oven will depend on the oven you have and how dry you blot your slices to be before baking. I baked my fruit at 90 degrees C and kept them in the oven for 4 hours. Turn your slices half way through or each time you check on them. Once they looked and felt dry and spongey, I took them out to move to the airing cupboard. By this point, they will smell AMAZING.

[Popping your fruit straight in to the airing cupboard or on top of the radiator for the week after slicing and blotting will work just as well, but take a little longer than helping the process along in the oven].

...and this is what they look like now - ready to be threaded and hung - I hope to have some time to do this later in the week and will share the results with you. They smell fantastic and look pretty good too.

I can't wait to get started. Are you doing the same? I'd love to see them.
And of course, these are not just for Christmas, these are hopefully going to be hanging around the house until they need replacing [which judging by last years slices, will be well in to a year].

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Hello! Happy Tuesday - how are you? I have succumbed to the cold I have been fighting for the last few weeks, so getting to my computer is difficult, but I hope I wont be too absent this week, mainly because I wanted to start all my Christmas prep - 5 weeks people, 5 weeks!

Today I post a very, very simple decoration idea using last weeks woollen pom poms to add a bit of cosy to your home.

I made a variety of pom poms in muted colours so that when we decorate at Christmas, they can still hang about without clashing or looking out of place. All you need is a needle and thread/wool the length of the garland that you want to make:

Simply thread through the centre of each pom pom and place on the thread/wool in the position

you want it to sit [as the tie made when securing the pom pom was so tight, you wont need to knot

the pom pom and it will stay in place easily] :

Continue threading all your pom poms until you have them spaced and in the sequence you want along the length of thread/wool chosen:

...and then hang! I chose to make small garlands of 7 pom poms to hang on the back of the chairs

in our dining room - I usually tie bows on the chair backs, but decided on the pom poms this year

and will add a few Christmas details to them nearer the time. I made loops either end of the wool

and fixed to each chair corner, so they can be taken off easily if we want.

These would also be perfect for hanging on the mantle, or longer garlands to wrap around the tree, or with pegs to hold cards nearer Christmas - I think I could find spaces all over the house to start hanging these - perhaps a woollen pom pom bannister garland will use them all up!?

Saturday, 17 November 2012

Is this background bright enough for you?
I love the woodland theme that comes out in Autumn and a bit of costume jewellery to pretty up my winter wardrobe. A weekend project before the madness of my Christmas preparation begins!
[P.S - nightmare to photograph]

Friday, 2 November 2012

With Fireworks night approaching - I wanted to make some sparklers of my own with a little popping candy suprise! Also, who doesn't love these and wish they were bigger?!

What You Need:
Breadsticks
Chocolate/Caramel
Popping Candy/Sprinkles

I can't make this seem difficult even if I tried and it's very quick. Melt your chocolate using your favourite method [hob/microwave]. Take your breadstick and coat around 4/5 of it in the chocolate [I found holding the breadstick over the chocolate and covering with a spoon the easiest method]

Allow your breadsticks to dry flat on a lined baking tray.

Before it has chance to set, sprinkle with a good coating of popping candy and allow to dry.

To finish, I melted some white chocolate and drizzled over the top for decoration.
Because of the crunch of the breadstick, the popping candy takes a while to take effect - watching people realise is hilarious - and great for kids [even better for big ones]!

Not everyone loves popping candy either, so here are ideas for some variations: Like the chocolate marshmallows I made, you could decorate with sprinkles, chopped nuts, chocolate drops or toffee chunks, coconut shavings - anything you fancy. I used some yellow sprinkles to create sparklers without the popping and caramel to decorate the rest of mine.

So much tastier than sparklers.

Or even create mini breadstick versions, using the same methods:

Have a wonderful weekend and have a safe Fireworks celebration! Thanks so much for popping by the blog this week - see you on Tuesday x